Constantine, pouring the usual drinks at the bar across the room, turned. “I beg your pardon?”
“To be honest, Constantine, it seems to me that after all this jetting about the planet, not to mention starting off the whole thing with a one-way nudist colony, I deserve some kind of compensation.”
“Why would you think that?” he asked mildly, though his gaze had gone glittery in that way that made everything inside her cartwheel about. She should have been used to it by now. And yet was not. At all. “Surely I cannot have given you any reason to assume that your feelings matter here? I did try to avoid it.”
“Perish the thought,” she said grandly. “I’m only looking out for your interests. If, after all, this is nothing but a little act we’re putting on for the press, well. That’s a different scenario than the initial bold threats that were issued. With, I suppose, a dose of compulsory nakedness from time to time, just to keep everyone honest?”
Constantine swirled the liquid he held in a heavy tumbler in one hand. His eyelids, already so seemingly sleepy, seemed to droop even lower. It made his gaze seem all the brighter.
“Why, Molly. I am shocked. Are you asking me for sex?”
Was she? But she knew she was. “And if I am?”
She didn’t know what she was doing. Or maybe that was a cop-out. Maybe she knew exactly what she was doing. Maybe what she’d said to him was true, after a fashion. She was putting out all this effort. She was already linked with him in the press and everywhere else. The whole world thought she was engaged in a torrid affair with the Constantine Skalas, which did not horrify her the way it should have. Oh no.
Molly knew, keenly, that the sixteen-year-old idiot girl who’d been so enamored of him would have loved to find herself in this situation. Had, in fact, wished and dreamed and hoped for precisely something like this to have come along back then.
What she couldn’t seem to handle—because the longing for him had become a pulsing thing between her legs, on the insides of her wrists, at her temples, in her throat, everywhere—was not getting the opportunity to actually have that affair.
Because she’d spent her whole life not having affairs.
Not only with Constantine Skalas, but with anyone. The world kept turning and people were out there having life-altering sex, apparently. All while Molly just writhed about in photo shoots, selling sex to the camera yet having none herself.
If he was going to blow up her life anyway, she might as well enjoy the fire while she burned. Why not?
And since she had the distinct impression that they were going to end up in bed together anyway, once he finished playing his little revenge games, Molly could admit that she took a certain pleasure in moving things along her own schedule.
Because she had the feeling it might very well be the only thing she would control when it came Constantine. Ever.
“I thought I made it clear,” he said, still regarding her in that way that made her want very much to squirm. If she was a person who squirmed. Until tonight, she never had been. “If you want me, you must beg. I do not mean pretty words, though I fear I do require them. I will have you on your knees, naked, begging for the privilege.”
“You really do like a pageant, don’t you?”
He gave a very Greek sort of shrug, more his chin than his shoulder. “The only people who do not care for a pageant, hetaira, are those who know one will never be thrown in their honor.”
“Fair enough,” she murmured.
And it was one thing to want sex at last. Right now. But another to do what he was asking. To debase herself—
But who was she kidding? She had already debased herself to the moon and back for this man, and more, had loved it more than she’d hated it. What was a little more where that came from?
Letting out a long sort of breath—a soft sound of surrender—Molly reached around to the side, where the zipper of the current dress she was wearing was cunningly concealed, and zipped it down. She let the gown fall, then pool around her feet, then she kicked it aside.
She let him look at her for a moment, stood there in nothing but heels and a push-up bra, and then she kicked her shoes aside and pulled off the bra at the same time. It was so easy to undress, she thought a little wildly, even though it took hours to get her looks put together so she could look effortless in public.
That is because fashion is always about sex, a beauty editor had once told her grandly.
Tonight Molly agreed.
Naked, she glided across the room until she stood before Constantine. And the longer she looked at him, the more her heart thundered inside her chest.
And the slicker, and hotter, she felt between her legs.
“Beg,” he ordered her, though his voice sounded slightly hoarse. Rough like his hands would be against her skin. “And make it good, Molly. I’ve been waiting for it for a long, long time.”
Molly took a deep breath. She wanted to smile but found she couldn’t.
Instead, she did the only thing she could.
The thing she’d been wanting to do for longer than she cared to admit.
She sank down onto her knees before the devil himself, tipped her head back so he could see her face, and begged.
CHAPTER EIGHT
AT LAST.
Constantine had waited so long. All the plotting. All the planning. The angry seed of vengeance that had been planted so long ago when his father had brought home a new bride. The small, wiry green shoot of fury that had developed when dreamy Molly, unaccountably, had shot to prominence as Magda.
Those years when he’d seen her face everywhere. Like a taunt.
And the exquisite, almost unbearable weight of what had dragged on between them now for nearly a month.
All for this.
This.
He would not say that he was used to her nakedness by now, for who could ever grow used to the sight of such perfection? He would sooner be dead than used to her.
But it was a different thing altogether to see her on her knees before him, graceful and gorgeous, and her head tipped up to him. Showing him, in case he’d had the slightest shred of doubt, that she hungered for him as he had always dreamed.
As he had been so sure she would.
Those arctic blue eyes were filled with heat, and Constantine could feel the weight of her hunger, its sharp claws, deep in his sex.
He could not wait to get inside her at last.
But all he did was swirl his drink in his glass and regard her idly. As if he was on the verge of boredom, but was trying to be polite, and he had the pleasure of watching her expression change as he looked at her.
He wanted her off balance, even on her knees. Maybe especially on her knees.
“That is a very pretty picture you are presenting to me, Molly,” he murmured. “But that is your stock in trade, is it not? Pretty pictures. Pretty images. None of them you. You don’t even use your own name.”
“Did I misunderstand the stage directions?” she asked, and for some reason, the warm undertone in her voice, that thread of laughter when surely she should have been more mindful of her own surrender, was nearly his undoing.
Why was it that he could not seem to remember that what was happening here was serious? It was revenge. It was not the place for laughter. He should not have liked her.
“This is the trouble with beautiful women,” he told her, and it was harder to sound as disaffected and jaded as he usually did.
But then, that was nothing new. He had been acting unlike himself when it came to Molly for far longer than he cared to recall.
Once again he was struck by how at ease she was in her skin. It was powerful. It made her seem something like mystical, adding to the glory of all her elegance. She settled back on her heels now, her breasts jutting out and her blue eyes gleaming with more than simply that hunger, now.
/> God, the ways he wanted her.
Especially when she smiled at him, that clever little curve of her lips that made him feel almost...silly. “I can’t wait to hear the thoughts of an inveterate bedpost-notcher when it comes to women,” she said. “Such things are always so incisive and hard-hitting, aren’t they? And not at all patriarchal. I’m surprised you haven’t already written a book on the subject, given how many women’s names you’ve likely forgotten in your time. In the last week, even.”
“Here is the thing about beautiful women,” Constantine said again, refusing to rise to her bait. And then, as he considered it, astounded that he had to caution himself against such a thing in the first place. “A beautiful woman assumes that the fact of her is sufficient. That she need not think or do or say anything further. She exists, therefore that is all that need be expected of her. Her mere appearance on any scene should do all the thinking, doing, or speaking necessary, and she therefore assumes it will.”
Molly’s head canted slightly to one side, and he could no longer see any of that humor in her gaze. He should have been thrilled.
He told himself he was thrilled.
“Beautiful women are born with a face that they did not choose,” Molly said quietly. After a moment that stretched on too long for Constantine’s comfort, and he was the one who was in control. He was not the one on his knees. “And they are taught, over time, that people will react to that face. That strangers and loved ones alike will treat that face in ways that have absolutely nothing to do with the person behind it. You learn quickly that it is far better to simply present yourself and see what the reaction will be first. It’s safer.”
Something seemed to crackle between them, a new and more dangerous heat.
“Molly.” Constantine said her name as if he had never tasted it in his mouth before. As if he’d never tasted her, when the reality was, he had never been the same since he had. “Nothing here is safe. Not for you.”
He expected her to quail at that. To shrink down, there where she knelt before him, or shrivel a bit. To show some hint that she was torn into a thousand pieces as he could feel he was. As he would rather rip off his own head before showing her he was.
But instead, this confounding woman—his once-upon-a-time stepsister and his current obsession—smiled.
A big, wide sort of smile that made him want to shout out his frustration loud enough to topple the Arc de Triomphe. And yet, at the same time, it made him want to taste that smile himself. And then the rest of her.
Now.
Why could he not compartmentalize this woman as he had every other thing in his life?
“No one expects an intricately plotted revenge plot to be safe, Constantine,” she said in mock quelling tones, and he could hear too well the laughter in her voice again. It was its own heat. “That would completely defeat the purpose of all that plotting. All the demands for naked sunscreen application. And our current grand tour of the romance that wasn’t.”
“If this is still a joke to you,” Constantine said, and it hurt him to say it so lazily, but he managed it, “you might as well get dressed and take yourself off to bed. I told you the only circumstances under which we will have sex, Molly. Mockery is not among them.”
She sighed a little. “I didn’t realize we had to be as solemn and serious as death. I have to tell you, every story I’ve ever heard about the irresistible charm of Europe’s finest playboy—and I think you know there are a great many stories—was a lie.”
“Not a lie,” he found himself retorting, when he did not need to respond to her provocations. Surely that she wanted him to respond was reason enough to refrain. “But not for you.”
“I do enjoy being special,” Molly murmured, her eyes too bright on his. “It’s because of an experience I had when I was but a girl, you see. I’ll tell you the story. Once upon a time, I had an evil stepbrother straight out of central casting who tied himself in knots to make certain I knew that while he was marvelous in all ways, I was destined for nothing at all but a life of sodden beige porridge.”
“You must be speaking about Balthazar,” Constantine replied, sounding significantly less lazy than before. “As I have never trafficked much in either the color beige, nor, happily, porridge. Sodden or otherwise. I would rather eat paste.”
“Constantine.” She knelt up again, raising her hands before her in what looked like supplication, even though he could see that all that heat and all that humor in her gaze was still right there. “You may have to lead me through this, as I’m a little rusty. I believe I picked up your deeply subtle attempt to let me know that merely kneeling before you as a woman you consider beautiful is not enough. But I’m afraid my begging skills aren’t my strong suit.”
“You can start by taking this seriously,” he growled down at her.
And again, found himself something like confounded when all she did was smile wider, her eyes sparkling as if he just recited a love poem.
“I take this very seriously, actually,” she said. She paused, almost as if she was debating something, but then blew out a breath. “I’ve never done this before.”
“Beg for it?” He should not have felt that as a particular triumph, and yet he did. “I would not know myself, but I’m told it can add a certain...intensity. If not for you, then for me.”
“Not so much the begging part,” she said softly. “It, Constantine. The deed itself. This will be my first time and I want to thank you, in advance, for making it so soft, special, and beautifully caring.”
Despite himself, Constantine laughed.
Hard.
Because the very idea of Magda, whose many lovers pranced about the planet giving interviews about exactly what it was like to sample one of the most beautiful women in the world—interviews that had long driven him mad—claiming to be untouched?
It was preposterous. Hilarious.
And somehow, it reset something in him. It settled him. If she needed to play games to get through this thing between them, then who was he to deny her that opportunity?
Constantine had always liked a game or two. It only made things more fun.
“Yes, of course,” he drawled, trying—if not too hard—to sound more serious then. “I should have known at a glance that you were a virgin. I’m honored indeed that you have chosen to hand over such a glorious prize to your enemy.”
Her smile grew practically beatific. “Constantine. You’re not my enemy. I’m afraid that’s always been a one-way street. Left to my own devices—those being, you know, when no one is mounting a coordinated campaign to crush my mother, taking both her money and mine—I don’t think about you at all.”
He shook his head, as if in disappointment. “Liar.”
Then, finally, at that single growled word, her smile faded.
And he watched, transfixed, as the heat took over.
It was possibly one of the most beautiful things he had ever beheld.
He could see it all then on that beautiful face of hers. Heat, growing by the moment. Need and longing, a match for his own. And that same wild, incoherent desire that stormed through him.
“That is a lie,” she admitted. And when he only held her gaze, she swallowed. “And I’m not kneeling here, naked yet again, to lie.”
“I would hope not.”
Molly’s blue eyes were nothing like cold any longer. No hint of ice.
He felt the heat there like a punch to the gut. And lower still.
“Please,” she said then, in a very different voice. This time she sounded husky. Greedy, at last. “Please, Constantine. I want to stop playing games. I want... I...” She faltered, and it seemed so real to him that he almost believed... But no. She was nothing if not an ace game player. She wasn’t famous by accident. “I want you inside me.”
And Constantine had played this out inside his head a thousand times. More. He h
ad intended this begging scene to go on forever. He had wanted abject pleading. Perhaps proof of overwhelming arousal while she was at it, but certainly Molly on her hands and knees. A bit of time prostrate at his feet, even.
But in all his planning for this moment, it had never occurred to him that he might want her this badly.
He had wanted her, clearly. But he’d spent years telling himself that his attraction to her was all a part of his revenge and why it would work so beautifully. Not...a wanting in its own right.
And Constantine had made himself wait so long. He’d made himself hold back, though such a thing was not in his nature. He had waited and waited—
The waiting ended then. With a crack so loud inside him he was shocked it didn’t tear down this building they stood in, then topple Paris to the ground.
He was shocked he still stood.
But in the end, it was that simple.
One moment he was worried about his plan, the next he was done.
Constantine reached down, unable to control himself a moment longer, and hauled her to her feet. He got his hands in the thick mass of her blond hair, shaking it free of its pins, then slammed his mouth to hers.
And the taste of her burned in him as it always did, so intense and so hot he could not believe he was not scalded.
But it wasn’t enough. Not tonight.
He gathered her against him, plundering her mouth, and he wanted more. More of her taste. More of that sleek, glorious body of hers pressed against him. He could feel the points of her nipples, a sweet agony against his chest.
It was too much.
Everything about her was too much.
Because with every taste of her, every little way she melted against him, it was as if she was somehow blazing straight through all those boundaries he had always kept strong and secure. As if she was the one melting him, from the inside out.
Constantine needed to get inside her. He needed to vanquish her, once and for all, and no other way had worked yet. Surely that would.
Her Deal With The Greek Devil (Mills & Boon Modern) (Rich, Ruthless & Greek, Book 2) - Caitlin Crews Page 10